Paul Hohnen - Sustainability Strategies

‘On climate change our choice is clear: we either embrace positive change now, or have negative change forced upon us in an all-too- close future.’ (1991)

Climate Change

Paul Hohnen began working on climate change in 1989. On leave from the Australian diplomatic service, from 1990-1993 Hohnen was leader of the Greenpeace Climate Change delegations to the Second World Climate Conference, the Montreal Protocol Ozone negotiations, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and the UN negotiations on the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Interviewed for BBC on Kuwait oil fires, 1991

Together with Jeremy Leggett and other Greenpeace colleagues, Hohnen developed a three-pronged set of proposals for global action on climate change. These called for three protocols under the convention that would:

set targets and timetables for reduction of greenhouse gas emissions
set national energy efficiency targets, and
establish a new global organisation for promotion of energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies.

Details on these proposals were submitted to the Conference of Parties in 1991-92. Other Greenpeace contributions included publication of the book ‘Global Warming: The Greenpeace Report‘, edited by Jeremy Leggett (Oxford University Press,1990) and arguments in support of approaching climate change as a national defence/strategic issue.

In the run-up to the 1995 Berlin COP, which cleared the way for the Kyoto Protocol, Greenpeace also initiated the first meetings of representatives of the insurance, finance, renewable energy and climate science communities. This was recognised in New Scientist magazine in an open letter to Greenpeace:

"... you have shown the way, notably by getting the insurance companies on your side. It was one thing to plead with governments, as other groups did, that warming would produce super-hurricanes, unexpected floods, droughts and other climatic havoc. But it was a coup to persuade the world's largest insurance companies that the escalating claims on them from major disasters could be partly the fault of climate change - and to lure them onto your platforms to say so. ... It is increasingly clear that it will be companies, and not governments, that will trigger the political sea change necessary for real reductions in greenhouse gas emissions."

As Political Director of Greenpeace International (1993-1998), he continued to maintain oversight of climate issues through until after conclusion of the Kyoto Protocol, with Bill Hare taking the lead as Climate Policy Director.

Further detailed history of this period can be found in Jeremy's book ‘The Carbon War’ (Allen Lane, 1999).


	Paul Hohnen Sustainability Strategies


	‘On climate change our choice is clear: we either embrace positive change now, or have negative change forced upon us in an all-too- close future.’ (1991) Climate Change Paul Hohnen began working on climate change in 1989. On leave from the Australian diplomatic service, from 1990-1993 Hohnen was leader of the Greenpeace Climate Change delegations to the Second World Climate Conference, the Montreal Protocol Ozone negotiations, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and the UN negotiations on the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. Interviewed for BBC on Kuwait oil fires, 1991 Together with Jeremy Leggett and other Greenpeace colleagues, Hohnen developed a three-pronged set of proposals for global action on climate change. These called for three protocols under the convention that would: set targets and timetables for reduction of greenhouse gas emissions set national energy efficiency targets, and establish a new global organisation for promotion of energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies. Details on these proposals were submitted to the Conference of Parties in 1991-92. Other Greenpeace contributions included publication of the book ‘Global Warming: The Greenpeace Report‘, edited by Jeremy Leggett (Oxford University Press,1990) and arguments in support of approaching climate change as a national defence/strategic issue. In the run-up to the 1995 Berlin COP, which cleared the way for the Kyoto Protocol, Greenpeace also initiated the first meetings of representatives of the insurance, finance, renewable energy and climate science communities. This was recognised in New Scientist magazine in an open letter to Greenpeace: "... you have shown the way, notably by getting the insurance companies on your side. It was one thing to plead with governments, as other groups did, that warming would produce super-hurricanes, unexpected floods, droughts and other climatic havoc. But it was a coup to persuade the world's largest insurance companies that the escalating claims on them from major disasters could be partly the fault of climate change - and to lure them onto your platforms to say so. ... It is increasingly clear that it will be companies, and not governments, that will trigger the political sea change necessary for real reductions in greenhouse gas emissions." As Political Director of Greenpeace International (1993-1998), he continued to maintain oversight of climate issues through until after conclusion of the Kyoto Protocol, with Bill Hare taking the lead as Climate Policy Director. Further detailed history of this period can be found in Jeremy's book ‘The Carbon War’ (Allen Lane, 1999).